“We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of 5 sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV. The outstanding performance of the LHC and ATLAS and the huge efforts of many people have brought us to this exciting stage,” said ATLAS experiment spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti, “but a little more time is needed to prepare these results for publication.”

"The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found,” said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks."

ASPEN, Colo. — Physicists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider said Wednesday that they had discovered a new subatomic particle that looks for all the world like the Higgs boson, a potential key to an understanding of why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe.

“I think we have it,” Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN, said in an interview from his office outside Geneva, calling the discovery “a historic milestone.” His words signaled what is probably the beginning of the end for one of the longest, most expensive searches in the history of science. If scientists are lucky, the discovery could lead to a new understanding of how the universe began.

A sigma 5 does not mean there is a 99.99994% probability they are right. To assign such a probability would require Bayesian statistics and priors. I think in this context, the 5 sigma means there would be less than .00006% probability of observing so large an energy spike in (uniformly distributed, Gaussian?) random noise. I could be wrong about how they are constructing the "confidence interval", but I am confident that confidence intervals cannot properly be interpreted as posterior probabilities.

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"Fully half the quotations found on the internet are either mis-attributed, or outright fabrications." - Abraham Lincoln

Some of my friends didn't quite understand this so I created this simple parallel. This particle, supposedly, will tell us where certain things 'come from.' It does not provide any information on how things 'came to be.'

Here's an example; The gold ring came from an ore inside of X mountain. The gold ring came to be via a skilled jewelry maker who spent countless hours designing it and crafting it.

Some places were reporting it as "proof of how we came to be." Firstly, not at all. You have to understand this particle before discussing it. It provides information on how various other particles come from essentially "nothing." Also, concrete evidence is not available. So far, it has been 'consistent' with what they believe to be the Higgs boson. Their reports are filled with maybe's, if's, think's, etc.

And yes the last big "CERN" announcement with acceleration of particles beyond that of light was entirely a failure.

"whatever the eff happened to their big announcement to discovery of something faster than the speed of light? they find something 'new' again within 3 months? what, is their funding at risk of cut or something?"

seriously, they must be facing a cut. just like nasa, which during the months of having itself face budget cuts and elimination of space programs suddenly rolled out a barrage of public relation advertising and announced they 'found alien life' then went quiet again almost just as quickly

i reiterate what i said at the time.. these academia and 'scientists' i once admired as an ignorant kid are just pathetic

during what phase was einstein funded by government as he wrote up relativity while working in a 3rd rate factory to feed himself?

It's being reported that this discovery helps explain how life arose in the universe - hence it's called the 'God particle'. I call BS on that, especially given the fact scientists don't know what life fundamentally is, or how to accurately define it.

That is indeed BS, but no scientist is making such claims. Blame the reporters who want to write something sensational. The pity is, in this case the truth is pretty sensational without adding a bunch of heeby jeeby to it.

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"Fully half the quotations found on the internet are either mis-attributed, or outright fabrications." - Abraham Lincoln

the "faster than light" anomaly that was reported last fall from CERN?
Was it an experimental error or are they still trying to figure it out?

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Let's wait a little while and see if they backtrack. The headlines sound like they're certain, but the articles all reveal some uncertainty. They've said the same thing before and then backtracked. I'd like to see how they calculated that they are 99% certain. It sounds more like a number they made up. Why not 97% or 99.90235%. 99% is what everyone on the planet says when they're "almost sure" of something. When they claim it with 100% certainty, and are able to duplicate their findings repeatedly, I'll start to believe it.

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